Offshore & Coastal Navigation with Digital QuickCharts

When you’re as girt by sea as this brown land, access to accurate offshore charts is pretty important. This big island of ours has no less than 570 charts covering the coastal waters, off-lying reefs and small islands. But if you are circumnavigating the continent, you don’t want to deal with that many different charts. The people at Memory Map have put together a DVD that compiles them all in one easy to use place.

Map Sources

QuickCharts includes digital copies of the Australian Navy charts which the Australian Hydrographic Service has been publishing since 1942. Since that time commercial fishing and recreational vessels have relied on the charts for navigating our often treacherous waters. The Royal Australian Navy also uses these charts, so their level of accuracy is excellent.

Other sources include the Western Australian Department of Transport, Queensland MSQ charts and the Great Barrier Reef Zoning charts. The scales range from 1:25,000 to 1:50,000 and there are also handy insets for harbours and waterways where you need more detail.

Features of the DVD

The DVD includes the Memory-Map navigator software, so no other purchase is required. Plan your route with distances, bearings and travel estimates. You can even print your charts with any symbols or notes you have made. By connecting a GPS, you can use your laptop or pocket PC as a complete chart plotter. The 3D World function allows you to see a virtual landscape of the coastal topography. QuickCharts Australia is available for Windows PC, Android, iPhone/iPad. You can download the charts to two of your PC’s and two mobile devices, perfect for planning on land and using at sea.

QuickCharts New Zealand

If you are heading east, you can purchase a separate QuickCharts DVD for New Zealand. Comprising the entire catalogue of NZ Navy Charts of the mainland and south-west Pacific Islands, the charts are kept accurate with annual updates. Over 290 charts and chartlets cover the area. Data is sourced from Land Information New Zealand.

Upgrades Available

A professional features upgrade is available for tracking third parties and assets, collision avoidance, large format printing and overlaying data.

IF I GET KILLED IN 2016 YOU'LL ALL KNOW IT'S BECAUSE I EXPOSED THE EARTH AS BEING FLAT. #TRUTHEXPOSED— Tila Tequila (@AngelTilaLove)

Like Tila Tequila and B.o.B, ancient Norse believed the Earth was circular and flat, surrounded by a sea serpent so large that it could grasp it's own tail. Until recently, heraldic dolphins and sea monsters decorated the oceans of charts and maps. The corpses of unidentifiable monsters washed up on beaches are called “Globsters” and have been reported for thousands of years.

We have recently discovered plastiglomerate washed up on Hawaiian beaches. Lava has melted into plastic rubbish and formed weird new rocks. We’ve discovered a new island – the trash pile solidified by currents in the Pacific Ocean. The Anthropocean is full of undiscoveries too that fooled even Google maps. Islands that have been re-drawn onto maps for centuries, eventually uploaded to digital databases, turn out to be just some more ocean, fabricated to impress those on the mainland who funded voyages.

GPS systems haven't been able to stop people from lying either. Found in Bas Jan Ader’s locker after his mysterious death at sea was a book, The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst, an incredible true story of the first round-the-world yacht race. In a desperate financial situation, Crowhurst entered the circumnavigation race in an attempt to promote his new navigation device for sailors. Completely out of his depth, Crowhurst hurriedly built a crazy, unsafe boat and spent the first half of the race probably terrified, floating around the Atlantic, whilst faking his positions to appear to be winning the race. Crowhurst either died or ran away during his journey, leaving behind a logbook record of elaborate fake celestial navigation and his own mental collapse.

It is hard for our gill-less sacks of bone and meat to experience the ocean without dying. Yet we persevere. Swimming, weightless, we can return to the womb, to a time where our lungs filled with amniotic fluid and we didn’t have to breathe. Charting the ocean and navigating it with said charts seems impossible but we have done it, The Chart & Map shop proves this undeniable, even if our maps and globes can’t convince that the earth is an orb.

IF I GET KILLED IN 2016 YOU'LL ALL KNOW IT'S BECAUSE I EXPOSED THE EARTH AS BEING FLAT. #TRUTHEXPOSED— Tila Tequila (@AngelTilaLove)

Like Tila Tequila and B.o.B, ancient Norse believed the Earth was circular and flat, surrounded by a sea serpent so large that it could grasp it's own tail. Until recently, heraldic dolphins and sea monsters decorated the oceans of charts and maps. The corpses of unidentifiable monsters washed up on beaches are called “Globsters” and have been reported for thousands of years.

We have recently discovered plastiglomerate washed up on Hawaiian beaches. Lava has melted into plastic rubbish and formed weird new rocks. We’ve discovered a new island – the trash pile solidified by currents in the Pacific Ocean. The Anthropocean is full of undiscoveries too that fooled even Google maps. Islands that have been re-drawn onto maps for centuries, eventually uploaded to digital databases, turn out to be just some more ocean, fabricated to impress those on the mainland who funded voyages.

GPS systems haven't been able to stop people from lying either. Found in Bas Jan Ader’s locker after his mysterious death at sea was a book, The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst, an incredible true story of the first round-the-world yacht race. In a desperate financial situation, Crowhurst entered the circumnavigation race in an attempt to promote his new navigation device for sailors. Completely out of his depth, Crowhurst hurriedly built a crazy, unsafe boat and spent the first half of the race probably terrified, floating around the Atlantic, whilst faking his positions to appear to be winning the race. Crowhurst either died or ran away during his journey, leaving behind a logbook record of elaborate fake celestial navigation and his own mental collapse.

It is hard for our gill-less sacks of bone and meat to experience the ocean without dying. Yet we persevere. Swimming, weightless, we can return to the womb, to a time where our lungs filled with amniotic fluid and we didn’t have to breathe. Charting the ocean and navigating it with said charts seems impossible but we have done it, The Chart & Map shop proves this undeniable, even if our maps and globes can’t convince that the earth is an orb.

The new editions of the quintessential Australian road atlas have just been announced and are now available for pre-order! We should have them in store (hopefully) on the 1st of December. ... See MoreSee Less